March 12, 2008
Go Home Already: Ghost World
>> New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has resigned, effective Monday. Lt. Gov. David Paterson will be sworn in to replace him. [NY Times]
>> Nationals fans are being asked to picked the songs that will be played at the new stadium. [D.C. Sports Bog]
>> The official DCist bikini? [Urban Outfitters]
>> Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced a new initiative today encouraging residents to submit to voluntary searches of their homes in exchange for amnesty if the residents have illegal guns or drugs. [WaPo]
>> "A small airplane flew into restricted airspace over the Capitol Wednesday, prompting the second Code Orange alert in the last week." [The Hill]
>> "We are told that Homicide is based on a non-fiction book by Wire scribe David Simon. And we, ourselves, live in the same world as David Simon. Which means that we are all, every one of us, the fantasy of an autistic child." [DCeiver]
Photo by DrCee
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Sommer, didn't you mention once that you want to have a panda on your ass?
any music they choose to play in the new stadium will be an upgrade - as long as they burn all the cds used for games at rfk. really, it was like being trapped in my audio nightmare. and for the love of pete, no more sweet caroline 7th inning stretch. they should take a cue from the cubbies and concentrate more on baseball and less on unnecessary theatrics.
Voluntary searches? Yeah fuckin' right.
@HCE
Indeed. Never mind that pesky Bill of Rights, just trust us; we're the government.
PFFFfffftttt!!
Re music at the new Nats stadium: Please, please, please do more to advertise the Chuck Brown/"Bustin' Loose" aspect of this. Voting opens tomorrow morning, so perhaps drop a link in the Morning Roundup?
do we get to pick the music for the pope's visit? i mean, of course, a choice of tasteful hymns...
on a serious note, please, just let our stadium have music that is played nowhere else. if it's something other teams do, let's NOT do it so we can be unique!
on a serious note, please, just let our stadium have music that is played nowhere else. if it's something other teams do, let's NOT do it so we can be unique!
No doubt, the Nats should glom onto the Wiz intro music and play "Welcome to DC".
CLASSIC one, Fenty! *knock, knock* "Hey, do you mind if we come in and search your house??"
"suuure, I don't mind!"
That has to be one of the dumbest initiatives I've ever heard of. I can't even imagine a bunch of people sitting around in a room thinking this is a good idea. Seriously, this highlights just how pathetic DC leadership really is.
CLASSIC one, Fenty! *knock, knock* "Hey, do you mind if we come in and search your house??"
"suuure, I don't mind!"
That has to be one of the dumbest initiatives I've ever heard of. I can't even imagine a bunch of people sitting around in a room thinking this is a good idea. Seriously, this highlights just how pathetic DC leadership really is.
The voluntary search thing is odd.
Contrary to what a lot of people think, refusing to have your house voluntarily searched is not grounds for probable cause to, ironically, have your house searched.
No judge in the world would allow that. Even in DC.
But it does raise some interesting issue.
Ostensibly they are looking for guns or drugs.
What happens if your drunk Uncle Joe is visiting from Petticoat Junction, and he's the one that answers the door when toe PoPo come knocking? Can he let them in to search?
What about your meth-addled roomie?
Or your tenant if you are renting a room?
What if a husband consents but the wife objects?
And will they limit the search to guns and drugs only? As I understand search laws, if they find other crap while they are there it's fair game.
Cudos to Fenty et al for finally realizing that kicking down doors of people you suspect of owning firearms results in people being shot. You'd really be surprised at how cooperative people can be if you only use a little finesse and use that magic word, "please." Extra points if the suspect is high on crystal meth and don't know WTF is going on. Might I suggest the police wear a friendlier uniform like, say, a starched white icecream man outfit. Everybody loves icecream!
Really, I did not see that coming. Sure, I guess the 2nd Amendment debate's been f***ed into the dirt, so maybe DC's looking to eff with the 4th Amendment, now? I figured if they were going to wipe their asses with the Bill of Rights, they'd either start quartering troops in upscale condo's without the condo association's consent, or repealing the 21st Amendment but only for the stuff that poor people drink.
Lookout, Carlo Rossi! They're coming for YOU!
Please! The 4th Amendment has been getting fucked with no Vaseline for a while now too with all the drug testing and dubious vehicle searches that go on in this country .
Please, please, PLEASE, can we banish that awful Fenway Park crap "Sweet Caroline" from Washington, forever? That was the worst thing ever about going to Nats games.
@HCE
Agreed! If I never heard "Sweet Caroline" again it would be too soon. Naturally there is a HUGE list of other corny ass songs (Paradise By the Dashboard Light, et al.) that I would like to see jettisoned into the Sun as well.
I would love it if they played "Run Joe" in obvious steal situations at Nats Park, that would be hilarious.
That bikini (or perhaps just the girl in the bikini) is HOT!
Not being a sports fan, were I in charge I would decree that from now on, music played at pro sports games will be limited to Polkas.
Ugh, I can't believe people still support Urban Outfitters. Their target audience is made up of liberal minded, alternative thinking individuals. And the CEO takes their money and does silly things like giving $13,000 to Rick Santorum's re-election campaign.
I wonder how many DC residents would ACTUALLY permit the police to search their homes? Think they'll release the numbers?
As for the restricted airspace in DC - anyone know the boundaries around DC that's restricted? I mean I figure if pilots can see the White House or the Monument - they should figure that they're in the wrong place?
Blasezone,
You are pretty much correct; however a general aviation may a various navigation equipment and it doesn't take much to wander into the outer limits of restricted airspace, especially if they do not have GPS.
http://www.nafcflying.org/DCADIZ.htm.
Ugh, I can't believe people still support Urban Outfitters.
Why does this surprise you? Do you realize that in New Jersey, where you can go to just about any strip mall and have an amazing Italian dinner for $20, there are motherfucking Olive Gardens all over the place? There's no accounting for taste.
Their target audience is made up of people who desperately would like to believe that they are liberal minded, alternative thinking individuals but are actually just shopping at an updated version of the Gap.
I fixed that up for you.
And the CEO takes their money and does silly things like giving $13,000 to Rick Santorum's re-election campaign.
This I didn't know, what I do know is that there was Santorum all over the bathroom floor at the Eastern Market Starbucks yesterday.
Thanks RJ. If I deciphered the aviational mumbo jumbo properly , it says pilots are not allowed to fly within 100 nautical miles (or whatever NM means) from the district. A new semi-pointless tidbit for y'all landlubbers!
To answer Hillman's post above, if I remember Crim Law 101 correctly, if the cops knock on your door and drunk Uncle Joe answers, so long as the cops reasonably believe he has authority to give consent to come in, they can come in. So, if Uncle Joe says "I'm drunk Uncle Joe visiting from Petticoat Junction", the cops should not take that as consent to enter. But, if Uncle Joe lets the cops in and then says he's just visiting, it's too late, especially if the po-po sees anything suspicious lying around in plain view.
I would love to see the stats on this endeavor. And, I would imagine, lots of seized contraband will be the result of scenarios like those Hillman envisioned, where someone who's not the owner or resident of the place allows the coppers in. Which means fun times at the courthouse to supress that evidence.
If this program is going to avoid problems, the police doing the searches will have to be extra sure that the person understands what they are consenting to, that they don't have to consent, that while amnesty for possession is granted, amnesty for other crimes is not, etc.
And after explaining all that, I'm not sure who would consent to a search. It sounds like this may be aimed at households where parents do not have control over the children.. I dunno.
I'm all for kicking in the doors of anyone who's a member of the NRA...
... but otherwise, this "voluntary search" thing sounds bogus. They had "voluntary searches" of "random" people coming off Greyhound buses a few years back, but it seemed likely that permission for such searches was obtained with heavy (but false) implications that refusal was grounds for suspicion.
but it seemed likely that permission for such searches was obtained with heavy (but false) implications that refusal was grounds for suspicion.
Natch. That's SOP for some nosey-ass cop that wants to search you, your vehicle, or belongings. I fell for that line once when I was 17, never again.
Fuck the Police,
HR
I see this voluntary search initiative as an attempt to create opportunities for people to "turn in" their relatives or roommates with relatively low consquences. The idea is that if you know your son is tweaking and has a gun in his room, but you don't want him to go to jail, you can call up the cops for one of these "voluntary searches" to get the offending items out of the picture and begin your intervention. Of course, to take the police up on this offer you have to believe that they're not going to immediately put your son's name on a watch list, or run the gun to see if it was ever used in a crime, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's probably a genuine "logical reason" for this proposal, but that it's still unlikely to produce significant positive results.